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From: asylvain@felix.UUCP (Alvin "the Chipmunk" Sylvain)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers,comp.misc
Subject: Re: Advertising Sleaze
Keywords: advertising
Message-ID: <157807@felix.UUCP>
Date: 21 Feb 91 20:26:54 GMT
References: <1991Feb7.103944.16813@cs.ucla.edu> <1991Feb11.053229.7022@toolz.uucp> <1452@gtx.com> <1991Feb14.201455.12253@qualcomm.com>
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In article <1991Feb14.201455.12253@qualcomm.com>
 rdippold@maui.qualcomm.com (Ron Dippold)
  writes:

> >In article <1991Feb11.053229.7022@toolz.uucp>
> >   todd@toolz.uucp (Todd Merriman) writes:
> >
> >-These are marketing lessons that I have had to learn in the past
> >-few months, being a software publisher with a very technical background
> >-and extremely weak in "BS."  To my greatest chagrin, I have learned
> >-that all the technical excellence in the world gets you ZIP in the
> >-software publishing game.  If the product is not marketed properly,
> >-it dies.
> 
> I think that shareware would have to be a glaring exception to this... PKZIP,
> Telix, etc.  In the dog eat dog of shareware, it's not who does the best
> marketing, it's who has the best software, period.  As a commercial example,
> there is SpinRite, which I haven't seen advertised at all.  However, it is so
> good that you will see it mentioned in magazine columns and information of it
> gets around by word of mouth.  Ditto for XTree Gold.

Yes, but there are extremely few shareware authors who use that as their
sole source of income.  When you're moonlighting from a regular job, you
can afford to concentrate on your package with zero efforts on marketing.
(Zero, that is, other than up-loading it to every BBS you can find.  
All that costs is phone charges plus evil glares from your spouse when
the bill arrives.)

If you're planing on going into business as a shareware author, it is a
durned good idea to, as they say, "keep your day job."
--
asylvain@felix.UUCP (Alvin "the Chipmunk" Sylvain)
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